Hands
by Oedipus Tex
Summary: FINISHED My brother is a Gundam pilot...and I said to myself, 'These are the hands of a killer.' The Preventers run a DNA analysis on a guy in hospital, and find the Lang's lost family member. Can this guy, with his mood and secrets, really be their son?
1. Part 1

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Gundam Wing, nor am I in any way associated with the company or people who were involved with Gundam Wing. I'm just a mere fan, writing a little story for my own amusement, and am not making any monetary profit from this endeavor. That being said, original characters contained within this fic do belong to me. Thank you.

**AN: For those of you who have read this before, I have not written new chapters, just simply did some reformatting (so make it a little easier to read) and fixed some typos.**

* * *

**Hands**

** Part One**

* * *

My brother is a Gundam pilot. I know, I know, what I should say is that my brother _was_ a Gundam pilot, but once you ever saw the way he prowls into a room, upright and with his shoulders thrust so far back that you thought his back curved the wrong way, you'd see what I mean. Even if he never fought another war again, he'd still be a Gundam pilot, present tense, as though he could at any moment go down into the basement and come up again with Wing Zero. Save the world again.

I vowed that I was to write this, the night that I was going to watch him get murdered.

He came to us in the year 197 AC, in February. He had been saving the world again, but we didn't know it yet. We didn't know anything about him except what the agent told us (which wasn't much). He had been lost to us for such a long time that we had long lost any hope that we'd ever find him again. But then one day the phone rang, and Dad answered it, and he stood still a long time, not speaking. When he was done, he turned to us and told us that they had found him, our lost brother. They were going to be flying him in, and we could pick him up at the Preventer offices in town.

Of us all, Mama was the happiest. On the anniversary of his disappearance, she'd go to the mantle and would move his picture ahead of all the other, current ones of us. She had to do that every anniversary because his picture always somehow got shuffled to the back during the year. He's only three in it. Calli looks a lot like him, but not as grim. He's serious in it, more serious than most children his age. Dark hair, falling into his blue blue eyes, and mouth straight. A sad picture.

I always thought that…I mean, when you look through a camera the correct way you are glimpsing a record of the past. I always thought that if you looked in a camera the wrong way you'd see the future. I wonder if, in that picture, he hadn't looked in backwards through the camera and had caught a vision of his future. Maybe that was what had given him that serious expression.

Dad was oddly silent about the whole thing. Normally, he's very vocal, but he didn't speak much about it at all. But when we were driving to the Preventer offices to pick _him_ up, Dad fiddled with the radio. That's Dad's way of showing that he's nervous. Mama sat next to him, untying and retying the stringy bow off her neckline. She spoke to us in a tone that lifted the words higher and higher, and became all the more tremulous the higher they went, like they were so excited that they couldn't hold themselves together.

"Everything's going to be _right_, now," she said. "I'm so happy…to have him back. Don't…don't overwhelm him, though." She turned in her seat, to stare pleadingly at us. "He isn't going to be immediately comfortable with us, so—don't overwhelm him."

I sat behind her, so I could safely roll my eyes, because the only one likely to overwhelm him was Mama. She's kinda high-strung. _I_ wasn't going to overwhelm him; the last thing I wanted was another older brother telling me what to do. Calli is friendly, but I couldn't see how a two-year old that never talks would overwhelm a seventeen-year-old. Alex is twenty, and he thinks he's a refined grown-up; sometimes, he actually acts like one. No, I didn't see any of _us_ overwhelming him. Besides, the thought of suddenly ending up with a brother you thought was dead was way too weird to get excited about.

"Hajime," Mama murmured softly. I knew what she was thinking. She was thinking that when he walked out he'd still be three years old. Dad looked at her.

All threats of anyone overwhelming him disappeared the second he walked out of the offices, carrying a dark-blue duffel bag in one hand, and a laptop in the other. This was not little Hajime Mama was thinking of. He looked Japanese, like Mama, and he also had some of Dad's white-guy features—the eyes—to show that he once belonged to us, but he didn't anymore. He was slim, but you could tell that if he wanted to snap you like a twig, he could. Whenever he moved, whatever was under his skin pulsated. His mouth didn't know how to smile. His eyes were frigid and hard. His hands looked really rough, like he had worked them to death. When he looked at me, the acids in my stomach boiled up and over, and a warm sensation spread throughout my body, making everything weak and shaky.

When he came out, he was glaring at a Preventer agent like she had run over his puppy, and glaring even harder when she introduced him to Mama and Dad. Like he probably didn't know who they were already. He didn't pat us on the back or shake our hands or did anything like that; he just nodded his head. It was like he had a big, invisible, neon sign on him: "Approach to at your own risk!" Alex says that it's more like, "Touch and DIE!" but he can be so dramatic.

He stood in front of us, and we stood in front of him, clustering together the way a herd of elk surrounds the calves whenever the wolf comes near. The Preventer agent stood back with a grin plastered to her face and eyes blinking widely.

Dad cleared his throat and slapped a hand around Alex's back. "This is Alex—he's in college." _He_ nodded. "This is Yoko." I smiled grimly, and he nodded. "And this is Calli." He even nodded at her too.

Mama's arms had this way of jumping up, and then fluttering back down to her sides again, before doing it all over again. She wanted to hug him, but she settled for wringing her hands instead. Calli hid her face in Mama's skirt, holding her stuffed bear out at him: Sir Bear Knight, Protector, I guess. The Preventer put her hand on his shoulder, and he shrugged it off, and then we left.

In the car, he sat next to the door, behind Mama, glaring doggedly out the window. He kept his laptop and duffel bag in his lap, and his hand wrapped securely around the door-latch. I was glad that Alex sat in between us.

I had the window open and put my hand out, letting the cool, rushing wind lift it up, up. Dad was driving and playing with the radio again, glancing back over his shoulder every now and again. But he looked mostly at Mama, because she sat with Calli in her lap. Mama and Dad are real big on safety, so they just about died when they realized that the car wasn't big enough for all of us and Calli's seat. It didn't stop them though. And Mama…Mama had her neck craned around, staring at _him_ as though he was the greatest thing to walk the earth since Jesus Christ. Every time she looked at him, her eyes shone like sunlight breaking through a pool.

She broke the silence, and asked, hopefully, "Do…do you remember us at all? Do you remember anything at all?"

"No," he answered, savage because of its monotone. His voice lacks inflection, and makes everything sound so much harsher than what it is. Like the fate of the world has rested on his shoulders.

"Oh," she replied, voice sinking. Her eyes lost some of their translucency.

"What were the Preventers doing there?" Alex asked.

"Butting in," _he_ muttered. His hand tightened on the door-latch.

Alex and I looked at each other, raising our eyebrows. "Okay," Alex said, drawing it out so it sounded long: _o-k-a-y_. "But there was some reason why they were there and not social services."

"It's classified."

We all laughed, because we thought he had told a joke. He didn't laugh though. He just stared at us like we were all certified.

Mama started getting choked up. She stretched her hand around to the back, as though to touch him, but she couldn't go very far. He was just out of her reach, and then he pushed himself further back into his seat. "I'm just so happy…."

He just stopped—I've never seen anyone stop like that before. Like the clock needs winding. Except, straining tendons ran like spider webs down his hand—the hand that held the door-latch.

"I'm just so happy that you're back," Mama continued. Water glimmered in her eyes. She smiled, and murmured, "Hajime—"

He came to life. He lifted his head, and said, "Don't call me that. And don't be expecting that we're all going to be one, big, happy family. I've lived on my own for the past year, without anybody telling me what to do, and I don't _need_ or want to be here. When I turn eighteen, I'll leave. I'm sure they already told you what to call me. It's been Heero Yuy for a few years now, and you call me that."

I guess he told us. The car was in silence—what do you say to a person who says something like that? We all sat there, stunned, and he just turned his face to the window like nothing happened. The sun fell on his face, but there was nothing in that blankness that it could reveal. I put my hand back inside the car and rolled the window up, because it had gotten cold suddenly.

Mama spoke. "Okay…Heero." She choked on the words, like they had gotten stuck in her throat. And in that moment, I knew that Heero Yuy was no brother of mine.

* * *

Heero Yuy is really Japanese. Not even Mama is that Japanese. _I'm_ certainly not. Mama isn't the most Japanese person you ever saw—her name is Peggy, for cripes' sake—but her kid shouldn't be more Japanese than she is. But Heero is.

We live by the tradition of taking our shoes off whenever we enter the house. We don't make guests do it, because Dad says it makes non-Japanese people uncomfortable, so we allow them to tromp all over the place with their shoes on, and Mama spends the entire time worrying about her white carpets. But Heero didn't even blink when he saw us taking our shoes off. He took his off too. He even did it with style: he did this foot flip thing, and the shoes tumbled up, and came back down, landing perfectly flat and next to each other like he had done it with invisible hands. A perfect ten. Calli went, "Oh!"

In the doorway, Mama stood in front of us, lecturing. She jibber-jabbered in a consistent tone, relating to him his origins, and gesticulating with her hands in the air. I don't think he was really listening to her. "I'm a musician: a pianist. I got your names—yours and your sister's—from my two favorite composers: Yoko and Hajime. Your father named Calli and Alex."

"They both like to assert their heritage," Alex explained. It's true. The house smells like teriyaki and soy sauce, as if to say, "This is a Japanese house!" But it also smells of lasagna and cheese.

Dad told me to show Heero his room, so we slipped past Mama and went on down the hallway towards the bedrooms. She followed us, probably panting down the back of Heero's neck the entire way. Heero kept glancing at her over his shoulder. She must have concluded that she was making him uncomfortable—_overwhelming_ him—because she left. 

"I have to get dinner ready. I left it getting cold on the stove, " she said, with a little laugh. I love Mama's laugh. She sounds like an imitation of one of her upbeat sonatas.

We went into the room and found Calli inside, in front of the birdcage that I hadn't taken out yet. It was on a short table, where she could reach, and she had her hands wrapped within the bars and was shaking it. 

"Beercup, sing! Beercup, sing sing!" she screamed, laughing. She threw her hands into the air and twirled around on her tiptoes. My poor little canary darted from bar to bar, silently.

"This is Buttercup," I explained, shooing Calli away. "He doesn't sing for some reason, so you have to watch Calli, because she is determined to make him sing. I guess she thinks that if she traumatizes him enough, he will. She doesn't know anything about anything." I smiled at my little, silent bird. "He's named Buttercup because he's yellow. I was going to call him Wandering Dreamer, but that seemed so girly…."

I looked at Heero, and Heero looked at me, with a flat face. I don't mean that it was 2-dimensional or anything, that it looked like you had a piece of paper with eyes and mouth drawn on, but it _felt_ that way, like knowing that the expression will never change makes it less real. Lifeless. Emotionless. Flat. Like no expression at all.

I sat on the bed, my face getting hot. I giggled. "This used to be my room."

Again, Heero looked at me, as if to say, "No friggin' kidding." Besides the birdcage, the bed comforter was pink. On the desk, there were a couple of girly books, like _The Last Unicorn_ and Nancy Drew. I blushed at him, because I felt so dumb.

I waited for him to ask where I had been displaced to, but he didn't say anything. He just put his laptop on the desk, and the duffel bag on the dresser. I wanted to know what was in the duffel bag, but he stood against the dresser, glaring at me, his hands hanging down by his sides. I looked at his hands. He had cricks in his thumbs, so that they bent slightly at an odd angle. But when he moved his fingers—they were flattened at the tips—they moved smoothly, creating and destroying the creases in his palms, and moving tendons that ran underneath the purple veins that marked his wrists. They looked really rough.

I lay down on the bed, and put my hands on my stomach, twiddling my fingers. I wanted to show him I wasn't scared of him. "Yep, I have to sleep in the same room as Calli now. She's got these Disney characters on the wall. Dumbo and Bambi and stuff. Makes me feel right at home."

I raised my head. He still didn't say anything. He just gave me this look like I was the scum of the universe.

I leapt up and grabbed the birdcage, so that I could put it out in the hallway. "You're _welcome_," I said as I walked out.

Mama called that it was time for dinner, and Heero followed me to the table. I tried to get Alex to sit in between Heero and me, but it didn't happen. "I made your favorite," Mama told Heero, beaming. Heero looked at Mama like she had lost her marbles, and we all sat down.

While we were waiting for Dad to serve us, Alex asked, "So…Heero, where've you been? I mean before you were all big and bad on your own. The Preventers were fuzzy on that."

Heero shrugged, taking his plate with a nod.

"Well, you must have been somewhere," Dad said, sitting down. Mama looked at Heero, her eyes glowing.

Heero picked up some chopsticks and didn't answer, like he hadn't heard. His eyes were glassy. Then he began pouring rice into his mouth, and that was when I realized how Japanese he is because he's an expert with the chopsticks. He could win chopstick championships, if they had them. Mama slipped her fork down surreptitiously, and took up her own chopsticks. Then she bent her head, and concentrated on getting her food into her mouth without dropping it a hundred times, because she's not very good. She mostly uses chopsticks for a fashion statement. Calli watched Heero, going, "Oh!" Then Heero thought he'd be a real wise guy and caught a fly with them, like he was Mr. Miyagi or something. We all laughed, but he didn't.

I was starting to think that maybe Heero wasn't such a bad guy after all, but then Dad mentioned the word "school." Heero's head shot up like a supersonic Jack-in-the-Box. "I'm not going to any highschool," he said, firmly. I gaped; I couldn't believe the tone of voice he was using with Dad.

Mama clasped her hands together, and stuck her chin in her hand, looking up at the ceiling. Alex scratched the back of his neck. Dad raised his eyebrows, and gave Heero a pointed look. "I don't understand. Why not?"

"I'm not going to highschool. Do you understand me now?"

Alex laughed, lightly, turning his eyes up into happy slits. "It's true. If you don't want his brains leaking out from his ears, you shouldn't make him go to highschool. I mean, look at Yoko!" It was a good thing that Heero was sitting in between us.

Dad ignored Alex. "No, I don't believe I do understand you. I presume you mean to say that you've graduated. Do we need to enroll you for college classes?" Heero's brow cleared. Dad grimaced. "You got your highschool diploma in that bag of yours?"

"Your food is getting cold," Mama muttered, sighing.

They ignored her. 

"It's stupid for me to go," Heero said.

"You're going." Dad's lips paled. He wasn't used to the kids defying him like this, and I didn't blame him. Heero was making _me_angry. Dad stuck his white lips together and turned back to his plate.

"No, I'm not."

Mama bit her lips. Dad turned back to Heero impatiently and pulled out the big guns. He pointed his fork at Heero, in absence of a finger. "That Preventer agent said that you were to go—"

Heero's face went blank. His tone became even more unrelenting than ever. "I told her…I am not going, and I am not going to discuss it any longer."

I sat in blind shock. Somebody talking to Dad like that—! I couldn't see how anyone could fight with Dad. He was so smart, he was a doctor, he was really easy-to-get-along-with. Nobody _ever_ fought with Dad. My fingers tightened around my fork. The food in my stomach felt heavy.

Then Heero gave Dad this look like he wanted to kill the man, and I realized that I had had enough. So I jumped up and poured my entire glass of water right over his head. I don't like my glasses half-full or half-empty; I just like them full, so I gave him a real baptism. Heero leapt out of his seat, shedding water in buckets. He was hot. The water rose in steam off him. He should have looked ridiculous, standing there, dripping water that dashed pink by the light of the sunset, but somehow he didn't.

"Yoko!" Mama screamed, appalled. "What are you doing?" Her head turned red.

Calli and Alex were laughing their heads off. Heero just stood, quiet and angry, like he didn't know what to do, or he was afraid of what he could do. Dad opened and closed his mouth at me several times, before speaking. 

"Yoko, go to your room!" he yelled.

"Go to my room?" I asked, numbly. I turned and went, Alex and Calli's howls following me down, but I thought that it was a crappy thing to do. Sending me to my room, like any common three-year old, just for sticking up for Dad like that? I stomped the entire way, shaking Buttercup's cage as I passed him in the hallway. I went past what used to be my room, went into Calli's room, and slammed the door shut. A moment later, I heard movement in _his_ room, and I kicked the wall. The shuffling stopped for a second, and then his door shut again. It was all so very unfair.

I lay on my bed, twirling my hair around my finger until the tip became red and bloated with blood. Mama came in, looking reproachful.

I bolted up. "Why did you send me to my room like I'm Calli?" Then, I screamed as loud as I could, so everyone would hear, "That guy is a jerk!"

"Yoko, stop yelling," said Mama. She sat on the bed next to me. When Mama tells you to do something you do it, so I closed my mouth, but I gave her a real good glare. She put her hands in her lap. "Why did you do that, Yoko?"

I smiled, and answered her in a high-toned, saccharine voice. "Oh, I was just welcoming him, Mama. In some cultures, you're supposed to wash the feet of your guest, but I thought I'd do it one step better. I would have dried him with my hair, but you didn't give me a chance."

"Yoko…."

"Oh, it's real long Mama," I said, bringing my hair forward so she could see, "so it would have been real feasible."

"I don't appreciate that tone of voice, Yoko. You're in here, like a child, because you are acting like one. By your age…what were you thinking?"

I fell back onto the bed, throwing my hands behind my head. I dangled my legs over the side and giggled. "He has a pink comforter."

"Yoko, he's your brother," Mama replied, quietly.

"Funny, I don't feel very sisterly towards him." My ceiling is speckled, and I imagined I saw _his_ face in it, like the face of Jesus in a tortilla. "I can't believe you're sticking up for him like that! After the way he was talking to Dad! After what he said to us in the car."

Mama sighed, smoothing the creases in my blanket. "He's very confused—overwhelmed—Yoko. Imagine if you were him."

"I imagine I'd be a heck of a lot more grateful, that's what! It's not everyday your long-lost family lets you shack up with them, gives you their rooms!"

"Yoko, please understand. I want this to work. It isn't going to be easy, but I want to make this work He's been gone for fourteen years, so it's natural that it's going to be awkward at first. I want this to work. He says that he'll leave once he's eighteen, but I don't want him to. I want him to stay, I want to get back the son that I have lost."

I groaned. "But Mama…that guy is a creep!"

Mama didn't say anything for a long time. We sat there in silence, Mama thinking about sad things, and I feeling like scum because I had made her sad. Then she got up and left. I tried to think about brighter things. I thought about how popular I was going to be at school now. How many girls can go to school saying, "What I do over the weekend? Oh, I got a brother."

* * *

Heero did go to school after all, and I did get a lot more attention, but not because anybody was interested in me. All their interest was in him. These girls were always telling me, "I think your brother is hot!" My school is a real meat-market, so when he showed up, all dark and brooding and mysterious, things became excited. I was waiting for Heero to end up with twenty girlfriends, but he never even ended up with one. It put them all into a quandary.

"Don't get too excited girls," I told them at the lunch table, where these girls sat, giggling over the latest guys. "I'm not so sure he even likes girls. Did I tell you that he sleeps underneath a pink blanket? Pink! It used to be mine—my spare one, I mean—and Mama told him she'd buy him a new one, and he told her not to bother." I might have accidentally left off the part where Heero had told Mama not to waste her money, because he was leaving in a few months anyway.

The girls winked their eyes, doubtfully, at me. "Why are the good ones always gay?" Lisa asked.

"There is no way that that guy is gay," Susan replied. "And if he is, it's just because he hasn't found the right girl yet." Susan had this determined gleam in her eye, like she believed that _she_was the right girl.

"He moves so smoothly. Fluidly. Like liquid metal. Or a panther."

I snorted, and suffered agonies of over-indulged sentimentalities. "He's TROUBLED," I said, but it didn't matter to them.

"His eyes are like storm-tossed seas."

I could appreciate where they were coming from, because Heero has the most intense, blue eyes you ever saw (I don't know how he had gotten them that way; it wasn't from us), but that didn't mean I wanted to hear things like that about him.

Alex left for school the same day that Heero came to school. Alex had to take a flight out, because he got into a university that couldn't have gotten any further away from us unless it was in outer space. Mama stood at the door, waiting to go drop him off at the airport, biting her fingernails. She had wanted Alex to blow school off, to get to know Heero better. "Bye Heero!" Alex said, smiling his charming smile, and slinging his bag over his shoulder. He walked out, passing Mama. Heero grunted. He sat on the floor in the living room, bent over his shoes, trying to untie this massive knot in his shoelaces. Everyone thought that Calli had done it, but it actually had been me.

"Hero, Hero!" Calli said, stretching herself over his back. He let her lie there.

"Heero, Heero," Mama corrected, her voice hitching every time she said it. You could hear the unspoken, "Hajime, Hajime."

"Hero, Hero."

I rolled my eyes, because Calli doesn't know anything about anything. Mama left to run Alex off, her steps terse and directional. Hurried. And that was when Heero and Dad got into their second fight.

The television was on, and we were watching the news. They had gotten into the boring political discussion part, and the Vice Foreign Minister must have been the topic, because they were showing a clip from her latest speech. We used to be real fans of hers, until a few weeks ago, when she started saying things like, "We must fight to maintain our ideals," and "Total pacifism is not the way." She did a 180 on us. Dad thought she was the worst traitor since Judas Iscariot, and turned the television off.

"I was watching that," Heero snapped, finally untying the knot. He leaned back to put his shoes on, and Calli tumbled off his back, giggling.

Dad stood in front of the television, and lifted his eyes nobly towards the heavens, like he was Abraham Lincoln without the beard. "In this house, we are total pacifists. I don't want to hear anything that little girl has to say."

Heero narrowed his eyes into little lines, until all you could see were these two blue slits. "You misunderstand her. Total pacifism is just idealism."

That started another fight, about pacifism. They argued about it in the car, making the ride to school a joy. Calli put her hands over her ears, even though it wasn't loud or particularly nasty, saying, "Oh oh oh," with her eyes widening. I wished that I could have done that; instead, I just stared out the window, glowering. People didn't use to fight with each other before Heero came. Hajime's birthday was in October. I couldn't wait until then.

* * *

Dad tried avoiding Heero like the plague. It was understandable, because the two did nothing with each other except to argue, and the more they argued, the angrier Dad got. The fights were never especially horrible, but Heero had this way of being so insistent it made your head want to explode. And you'd see Dad's head turning red, and his fingers twitching, and then he'd walk out like he was afraid he was going to do something he was going to regret.

As much as Dad avoided Heero, Mama did the opposite. She couldn't get enough of the guy; always, she was begging the question, "Where's Heero?" and she just wasn't happy until she knew where he was. She had this way of sitting at the piano, playing old songs and lullabies, and asking him, "Do you remember this one?" He always answered her "no," but she'd keep on playing, convinced that some day she would find the song that triggered it all, and Heero would be three years old again. Whenever she looked at him, this hungry gleam came into her eye as though she knew he was going to spirit away again, and she, if by eating him up could stop it, would.

He suffered from nightmares, and would wallow in his bed silently, but Mama wasn't too upset by it. She'd sneak into his room at night, after he'd fallen asleep—he was always sleeping, the bum—and she would stand over his bed, watching him. The nightmares gave her her excuse to stand over him like a stalker, I guess.

One night, I woke up late to use the bathroom—never drink three glasses of milk right before bed—and I had to pass by Heero's door to get to the bathroom. It was cracked open, and inside, Mama was standing over his bed, clasping her hands. Dad stood beside her, looking uncomfortable and worried and angry all at once. I crept to the door and peeked in.

Dad whispered something to Mama, but she wasn't paying him any mind. All she had eyes for was Heero. I was disgusted with her, because he'd been with us for two months already and you'd think she would have gotten over it by now. But no. Timidly, she put her hand down and touched his hair. Dad stuck his hand on her shoulder, and whispered to her more earnestly. I could hear him sptzing.

Then Mama put her fingers against Heero's cheek, and he jerked up. He was a blur, and had Mama's wrist in between his hand, _twisting_ and _pushing_ down. She cried out, and Dad darted forward, but Heero had already let go of her wrist and was on his knees, pressed against the wall, chest heaving. I flipped the light switch on and ran into the room, screaming, "Mama!"

Mama held her wrist, shaking. Her wrist was blue, turning into an angry welt of purple. Her face was pale. She stood looking at Heero, blinking, face scrunching in agony and confusion. Dad and I clustered around her, and Dad gently touched her wrist. She flinched it away from him. "No, don't touch it," she gasped. She couldn't even bear to touch it herself: her fingers, trying to form a circle around it, trembled just above it.

"Let me see it," a deep voice rumbled. Heero slipped from the bed, and Dad took Mama by her shoulders, moving her away.

"Get away from her!" I screamed. I rammed him with my shoulder, and might as well have been doing it to a brick wall. I bounced off him and slipped to the floor, squeaking. Heero stepped over me.

"I won't hurt her—let me see it," Heero insisted, holding his hands out. "I think it broke."

"Yeah, it's broken—" Dad snapped. Then he took Mama by her unhurt wrist, and me by my wrist, and pulled us out of the room. We practically ran out.

"I'm—" Heero started to say, but he stopped when we walked out. He didn't follow us. I think he knew better.

"Yoko, go get Calli. We're going to the hospital."

"Don't wake Calli up—" Mama pled, letting Dad pull a jacket around her shoulders.

"I'm not leaving them here alone with him." Dad said "him" like it was a dirty word.

I ran down the hallway, sidestepping Heero's door as though he was going to come charging out at me, swinging an axe. I looked in as I passed, and he was perched on the bed, real still, and his face quiet. He didn't look at me as I went by. I got Calli out of bed—she cried, but I shushed her and grabbed her her teddy bear—and then we left. The really funny thing was that, when Mama wasn't looking, Dad left money on the kitchen table. I didn't understand what that was for.

**AN: For those of you who have read this before, I have not written new chapters, just simply did some reformatting (so make it a little easier to read) and fixed some typos.**


	2. Part 2

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Gundam Wing, nor am I in any way associated with the company or people who were involved with Gundam Wing. I'm just a mere fan, writing a little story for my own amusement, and am not making any monetary profit from this endeavor. That being said, original characters contained within this fic do belong to me. Thank you.

**AN: For those of you who have read this before, I have not written new chapters, just simply did some reformatting (so make it a little easier to read) and fixed some typos.**

* * *

**Hands**

**Part Two**

* * *

When we came driving home, a narrow stream, like a deep, deep blue river, ran along the horizon, brightening it. We had been at the emergency room a long time, and not just because it took them a while to get to Mama's wrist. But we finally got to leave, and nobody got arrested, and Mama and Dad sat muttering to each other in the front. Calli slept in her seat, and I pressed my face against the window, feeling the cool against my cheek, and pretending to be dozing. And listening to Mama and Dad fight.

"We should have told them the truth," Dad growled, his hands turning white on the steering wheel. Deep, black shadows hung underneath his eyes. "I don't appreciate being treated like I beat my wife."

Mama ran a hand against her hair, slipping the blackness from her face. Her hair is blacker than anything, like a black hole, swallowing up light. "We did tell them the truth. It was an accident, David—"

"An accident?" He motioned towards the cast on Mama's arm, glowing white. "He broke your wrist. That isn't an accident."

Calli stirred, moaning softly. Mama and Dad went silent, Mama glancing around to shh Calli. Calli settled back down, and when Mama and Dad spoke again, they kept their voices low.

"Do you have any idea how mortifying to was to be questioned like that?" Dad hissed.

Mama's face took on an expression of forbearance, her eyelids falling down heavy over her bloodshot eyes, and her mouth drawing as straight a line as the one on her brow. In a tone of great endurance, she said, "I was questioned too, David—"

"But not like you're a suspect! The hand-shaped bruise is a real give-away, Peg." Dad said then, in a mocking tone, " 'No, I don't hit my wife.' 'It was an accident.' 'Our fights do not get physical.'"

"Oh, and you think I liked insisting that I wasn't some battered woman? I couldn't tell them that it was my son that did this." Mama caught her breath, and turned her face away from some unseen horror. She raised a hand and laid it over her eyes, which had shut tight. She sat that way, for several moments. "It isn't his fault. Hajime wouldn't purposely hurt anyone."

Dad grunted, turning the heat down on the dash. "That isn't Hajime."

Mama didn't answer and pressed her hand against her mouth, shaking her head softly. Dad drove quietly, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel, to a song that only he could hear. The soft _shish_ of the heater gave him his accompaniment. His jaw bulged out at the sides. Mama looked out the window, patting her tears away. She was always crying now. I closed my eyes and pretended that Heero Yuy had never existed.

Mama giggled suddenly. "At least this way, it will force me to get really good at my left hand piano—"

Dad spoke, lowly, but firmly. "That's it, he's got to go. We can't keep him with us anymore."

Mama gasped, twisting, holding her hand out. "No. David—"

He whipped his head back and forth, between her and the road, and mouth hung open like he had smelled something bad. "No. He acts like some sort of robot half the time, he's rude and hostile—"

"Oh!" Mama suddenly cried, like a needle had pricked her. "David, you don't suppose they told him about…."

Dad's spine became a rod of iron. He wiped a hand across his mouth, moving his fingers down to scratch at his neck, almost frantically. "It…it doesn't matter if he does know. If they did tell him."

"It would explain his cold manner."

"But not his attacking people. Peg, he's got—" Their voices were rising again.

"I cannot see how you can suggest—"

"I don't see how you can suggest keeping him around?"

"He's your son, David!" Mama screamed.

Calli woke up crying, and there wasn't any use for pretending anymore: I sat up to soothe her.

"When we get home," Mama said, turning in her seat in impatience, to give Calli her the teddy bear, "we will speak with him."

Dad didn't say anything.

* * *

Heero had a real surprise for us when we pulled up. A strange car was parked in the driveway and the house was lit up like a Christmas tree, lights blazing everywhere. Mama and Dad looked at each other, paling, before we all went running into the house. I had to get Calli, so I got in a bit after they did. I found them in the living room, where a woman and Heero sat. The woman was the agent from the Preventer office, her reddish hair falling in cones on top of her ears. She smiled bleakly at us, but friendly, like it wasn't about to all hit the fan.

"What's going on?" Mama asked.

"Are you taking him back?" Dad asked. Mama made a motion of disapproval, frowning.

"No, no. I'm just here to speak with you. Heero called me—but we have no plans for…." the agent said, standing. She wasn't dressed in proper Preventer uniform, and her hair was escaping from its place.

Mama bent towards me, patting my back anxiously. "Go to bed—put Calli to bed. You need your sleep for school."

"I'm not going to school!"

"Yoko…." Dad murmured, stepping further into the living room, his arms and legs and back stiffly stuck. When Dad walks stiffly, it looks like there is something wrong with his legs, like they stick out at the wrong angles, so he has to swing them awkwardly ahead of himself.

I stamped my foot, and I did as they said, but I muttered darkly as I went: "No use trying to hide it—I'll find out anyway." 

Buttercup had his head tucked underneath a wing, and he winked one eye at me, in deep criticism, as I passed his cage in the hallway. I stuck my tongue out at him and stopped muttering, but not because a bird looked at me like that. I put Calli into her bed, but I snuck back out into the kitchen, where I would be able to hear everything that was said. There was a half-wall partition between the kitchen and the living room, like an extra counter, and by raising my head tentatively over it, and hiding it behind a fat green floral arrangement, I could see what was going on too.

Heero circled the room restlessly, spitting at the agent, reading her the riot act. _He_ didn't move stiffly. "I told you this was a mistake. I didn't need you guys butting into my life."

"Well—" the agent said.

"Take advantage of unconscious people in the hospital…."

"But Heero, that's the only way people can take advantage of you!" The agent smiled, and then lay out a heavy sigh. "I don't want to talk about this anymore. You fully understand the reasons why—"

"They don't want me to stay here."

Mama stood next to Dad, wavering. When Heero spoke, she fluttered a hand at him. "That's not true, Hajime," she exclaimed, her voice cracking.

Heero swung on her, eyebrows digging down into his eyes. "Don't call me that."

"Listen, obviously no one is going anywhere—" agent said.

"He attacked her!" Dad shouted, throwing a hand out at Heero. "You expect him to stay here? Look at her. He broke her wrist. Nice thing to happen to a pianist, much less to a mother."

"Oh, for goodness' sake, I haven't even played professionally in thirteen years!" Mama exclaimed.

"Well…." The agent tapped a finger against her chin. I began to lose faith in her. I should have expected something like that, from a full-grown woman who still puts her hair in braids. "I understand where you're coming from, David. If he attacked her, with the view of harming her, then of course he mustn't stay. Heero, did you purposely hurt her?"

"What do you think I am?" he snapped.

The agent grinned at Dad, putting her hands together girlishly. "There you go! No reason for him to leave."

Dad swelled, drawing air within, and ending it with shaking, and a threat that he was going to pop. "You have got to be kidding me!" he growled.

"It was my fault," Mama interjected, voice faltering, and then softening. She pressed her cast against her stomach, and put her other arm in front of it, like she was trying to hide it. She tempered her voice lower. "I startled him. He was asleep, and I surprised him awake. People do things all the time when they're half asleep. They sleep-walk and…he let go, once he realized."

Dad turned to the agent, and spoke only to her, apparently assuming that she was the only one that it was any use talking to. "Try to understand what I am saying here, please. He _snapped_ her wrist—with one hand. It…was…deliberate."

"It was not," Heero rumbled, still circling. "What reason would I have to do something like that? This is so stupid."

Dad flickered his eyes once at Heero, flash and then down, and then return to the agent. "A person half-asleep may do many things, but I refuse to believe with that much force. How could someone, unless they meant to do it?"

Heero stopped circling and leaned against the wall, tilting his face towards the Preventer, his eyes glittering beneath his hair, and arms crossing his chest. They stared at each other with meaning, and some silent communication must have passed between them, because Heero turned on his heels, glowering. The Preventer cleared her throat, and placed her hands behind her back, where I watched her cross her fingers. I covered my mouth.

"What I am going to relate to you is of a shocking nature," she began. I crammed both hands over my mouth, to stifle any squeals of outrageous horror that I might experience once I heard of the shocking nature. Everyone knew that there was something funny, something wrong, about Heero. Were we finally gonna find out what it was? 

"I am not at liberty to divulge much," she continued, "but a significant amount of…of genetic manipulation…including strength enhancement…has been done…."

It didn't register with anybody at first. Mama and Dad stood staring at the agent, as if waiting for her to yell, "Psych!" But she never did.

Mama groaned, throwing her hands up in front of her face. "What do you mean?"

"I'm sorry. I am not at liberty to say anything further."

Dad howled. " 'Not at liberty…' What is he, some kind of science experiment?"

Heero was turned, and his shoulders became like two pieces of armor across his back.

The agent gurgled in her throat, crossing her arms impatiently. "You are not making this easy for anyone, Dr. Lang."

"Why…why would anyone do something like that?" Mama asked. She clenched and unclenched her hands in her skirt, gathering it, wrinkling it. She sounded horrified, her words echoing with hollowness, and voice cracking into pieces. "What happened to our son?"

"I'm sorry, but I cannot explain any further."

Dad began tromping around the room, to make up Heero's lack of doing so. Every time Dad passed by Heero—Dad, looking determinedly away—the two would tense and dense into marble statues. "This is some sort of joke. I think we have a right to know what sort of people are under—"

"That information is classified, Dr. Lang." The agent enunciated "class-i-fied," until it was three distinct syllables.

I stared hard at Heero, keeping my hands still fixed over my mouth. Heero _had_ been telling the truth. Suddenly, he was a bit more interesting. What sort of deep dark secrets…?

Dad muttered underneath his breath, turning on his heels, stamping his feet. I ducked further behind the fern; I heard only a few of the words he grumbled in righteous indignation: "ridiculous," "absurd," "classified."

The agent cleared her throat. "I'm sort that we cannot tell you any more, but please let it be enough to know that he certainly didn't do it on purpose. There is no need to consider him leaving as an option."

"Yes," Mama replied. Heero looked faintly victorious, flashing his eyes at Dad. I wondered what it was that made him want to stay so badly.

Dad came to a resting place, and spoke, intensely low, "I think his leaving is still a very clear option for us. I'm forced to wonder about this genetic enhancement and manipulation. The genetic imprint will have changed, and even if he is Hajime, there is probably no absolutely certain way that we can be sure. The test results—"

"Dr. Lang!" The agent lowered one eyebrow over one narrowed eye. Her arms crossed even more tightly against her chest. "We took that into consideration. Trust me, we have excellent geneticists working on our staff."

Dad laughed. Dad laughed long. "Do you want to know what I think? I think you all had this kid on your hands, and you didn't know what to do with him, so you pawned him off on us! We were convenient for you. Close enough to be the real thing—"

"And what," the agent asked, dropping her voice to a depth, "if it is him, Dr. Lang?"

"It_is_ him," Mama insisted.

"I hope you weren't shallow enough to think that everything was going to be peaches-and-cream, Dr. Lang. Are you truly willing to risk losing him one more time because you would rather not have to go through some difficulties?"

I bit my lips, hating that woman. How dare she—? Dad paled and his eyes darkened deep blue in emotion. He looked so unsure of himself.

"David," the agent continued, her tone softer, "has he honestly given you any other good reason for him to leave, other than the one we have, I hope, explained away in a satisfactory manner?"

Dad grimaced. "Other than the fact he is incredibly argumentative…?"

The agent smirked, and glanced at Heero. "Nobody would ever accuse Heero Yuy of being unable to vocalize his opinion, but I suppose it isn't a crime. But David, if he is your son, which I firmly believe he is—there is some resemblance there, you know—you have a responsibility to him."

"I am fully aware of my responsibilities as a father," Dad snapped, lips blanching. His tone sounded haunted. I sighed. "A father's duty is to protect…" he muttered, slowly. He took a deep breath and let it out uncertainly. He tapped his fingers against his forehead, smoothing the heavy lines that got there. "He…uh…I guess he can stay, provided nothing like this happens again."

Mama tried clasping her hands together in victory, before remembering that one of them was in a cast.

The agent's face cleared and she smiled a little smile. "Very good. Can I trust I can leave you all now, go catch up on my sleep, without any further incident—for today, at least?"

"I think we can manage that," Dad sneered.

Mama walked the agent out to the car—the agent telling Mama that, "Honestly, I expected a blow-up a lot sooner than this!"—and Dad and Heero stood in the living room, scanning each other up and down, weighing each other as mortal enemies, as it were. Dad muttered something that I couldn't hear, and started for the door.

"David," Heero intoned. Dad turned aggressively toward him, swinging round with hands slowly rising. Heero held something out. Dad looked at it, mouth twisting. "You forgot this on the table." Heero stepped forward, shoving the stuff into Dad's hand. "Just to let you know," he growled, "if I was going to run, I wouldn't need _your_ money to do it."

Dad stood panting into Heero's face. "Why would you want to stay? You don't belong here."

"This wasn't my idea; I never wanted something like this. I'm sure you've guessed I haven't had the most normal life, and I haven't spent it playing the game. But the powers that be want me to play, and I think I can handle doing it for a few months. And I don't like people getting in my way of what I want to do."

Heero passed Dad to leave, and Dad stopped him, grabbing him by the shoulder, and drawing near. Dad swallowed, and muttered, "Just to let _you_ know, I am fully aware of the legal recourses provided to legal guardians, and if I wanted to have you taken out of this house, it would fully be in power to do so. Step one toe out of line, do one thing that is not acceptable to me, and you will be gone."

They didn't say anything else to each other. They gave each other one last screaming look of mutual hatred, and then parted. Heero walked out just as Mama walked in, he muttering something to her as they passed. She smiled at him and shook her head gently. Dad quickly buried the money into his pocket, and then he and Mama began a low-toned conversation. They receded further into the living room, and I deemed it safe enough to escape the kitchen, to sneak back to my room. I was flinging myself into bed just as my door began to open behind me, letting a single ray of light shoot in, landing on Calli's face. I let my eyes open just a sliver, and by the golden, brown color of the glare that shone off hair, I knew it was Dad looking in. I pretended to be asleep, until the light vanished.

I opened my eyes and listened. The Disney characters all over the wall were black shades, and the light from the sunrise made their eyes glow white, wide and watchful. A furious clicking sound, of fingers on a keyboard, issued from the room next door. Further on down the hallway, voices were rising. Mama and Dad fighting over Heero, I'm sure.

I turned onto my side, and thought, "So, he is staying after all." Heero was some sort of freak. They were afraid to tell Dad, and Dad said that if there was something unacceptable about Heero, then he could legally get rid of him. Get rid of Heero Yuy, and his hands that he had worked to death.


	3. Part 3

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Gundam Wing, nor am I in any way associated with the company or people who were involved with Gundam Wing. I'm just a mere fan, writing a little story for my own amusement, and am not making any monetary profit from this endeavor. That being said, original characters contained within this fic do belong to me. Thank you.

**AN: For those of you who have read this before, I have not written new chapters, just simply did some reformatting (so make it a little easier to read) and fixed some typos.**

* * *

**Hands**

**Part Three**

* * *

In my mind, I termed it the Broken Wrist Incident, and things were a bit awkward for a few weeks after it, especially between Heero and Dad. Mama tried her hardest not to act like anything was different, and even let Heero drive her around town whenever Dad couldn't do it. I once had to go with them somewhere, and after that I decided that I wasn't going to ever get in a car with Heero Yuy again. He drove like a madman, and I don't know how it is that he didn't smash us up twenty times that day, other than his having some magical ability to keep us from dying. Mama just sat in the front seat, smiling grimly, creating a hole in the floorboard where the imaginary brake pedal was, and her fingernails digging lines into the seat cushion. When the cast came off, Mama celebrated by playing the most difficult song in her repertoire. And whenever they drove anywhere, she made it Heero's special designation to warm the passenger's seat.

The real awkwardness between Dad and Heero was that Dad seemed to have decided that he had no reason to fear Heero, even though I knew that he did. It was weird, watching Dad wiffle-waffling between coming down on Heero for things or not, because it was a dangerous thing to make Heero mad. Heero knew something about Dad that would make Mama furious; Dad never should have tried to encourage Heero into running away, especially if he was going to start asserting some authority. I especially wished he didn't, because every time they were around each other, you could feel that something was coming, that something was boiling and boiling, and was gonna blow up someday. Mama and I both made an unspoken pact to always be in the same room as Dad and Heero, to hopefully help keep the peace, to calm the explosion that was coming. But there wasn't anything we could do about Dad getting all authoritative on Heero. Instead of glum expressions of anger whenever Heero was in the same room, Dad tried overbearing stances of father figure-ness. Instead of arguing with Heero about everything, and Heero doing whatever he wanted to do anyway, Dad tried tentative punishment. I'll never forget the first time Dad tried it, after Heero just got done mouthing off at the dinner table.

"Grounded?" Heero asked, blinking like it was a foreign word to him. "What the—" He stopped, and I coughed, because Mama was always telling Heero to watch his mouth.

"Yes, grounded. You know grounded, don't you? You aren't to go out anywhere."

I coughed again, into my soup. Creamy ripples traveled across the surface, displacing a piece of floating broccoli. Mama sat across the table, tapping her spoon against her bowl, her eyes above her head. Calli yawned, brushing her hands through her brown hair.

"I want you home directly from school," Dad instructed. He was sitting next to Heero, and was trying to look commanding by sitting up really tall, like he was overseeing a child. From where I was sitting, the situation looked reversed. "No going out with your friends."

I threw my spoon down, creating a terrific splash, and screamed, "That's not fair! Heero doesn't even have friends!" Mama looked reproachfully at me, but I didn't care. It _wasn't_ fair!

Heero didn't answer me, but he gave me this look as if to say, "Yes, I do."

"No, you don't," I sneered. "It's not like you hang out with anybody from school."

Dad tapped his finger against his chin. "Hmm…" he hmmed. "In that case, we'll just take your laptop away, for one week."

Heero just about died. His eyes narrowed, slightly, like he was confused, or more probably, disgusted. "You will not."

Dad raised his eyebrows, and smirked a small smirk. He had found Heero's trigger. "Two weeks." Heero opened his mouth. Mama cleared her throat, and poured Heero a glass of juice, like he was only three or something. Dad continued, "I can keep going. I don't care if you never have that thing again."

Heero thinned his eyes at Dad, but he didn't say anything else. And so for two weeks, Heero didn't have his laptop to play with. We didn't realize how much he was devoted to it until he didn't have it. He lay about the house, mourning for it, doing and redoing homework as though he didn't already make straight A's. And when Heero wasn't letting Calli climb all over him, like he was a mountain laid to waste, he was outside, messing around with the basketball hoop above the garage door. He was so forceful slamming that basketball into the net, we thought he was going to bring the garage door down.

I personally thought it was hilarious; he was Achilles, pouting in his tent, morose with sighs. But Mama got worried; said, "I don't like seeing him without anything to do." I think Dad was kinda worried too, or maybe just irritated, because he suggested that Heero get an after school activity—preferably sporty—to burn off all that excess energy. 

"Maybe it'll make him less argumentative," he said to Mama. 

Dad told Heero to try out for basketball. I thought it'd be really funny to tell Joey, the ping-pong captain—always desperate for new players—that Heero was looking for a sport to join. Joey was the most determined guy you ever met, and no one ever refused him once he got going. He once trailed his history teacher for two weeks to get a grade changed, and ended up with an A. I firmly believed in the irritation power of Joey, but even I said, "No way." But Heero joined the ping-pong team. Within three weeks, Heero was asked to leave.

Heero was known for his six-minute game. He served the ball with such speed that by the time he was serving his second, his opponent was just getting ready for his first. He lay them down as quickly as they could get balls into his hands. The other three ping-pong players walked around the school, with twitchy, harried expressions, herding together discussing strategy and technique in undertones. Whenever Heero passed, they regarded him as the lamb regards the butcher: with a weary sort of doomed resignation. Joey was the happiest boy on earth. It broke his heart to have to let Heero go.

Joey waited until after school, when the hallways were full of students, to tell Heero he was kicked off. I think he was hoping all the other kids would serve as obstacles, in case Heero got punchy. "The other players…they're all threatening to drop out. Losing so much is really bumming them out, man. It's like they're getting inferiority complexes or something. They're afraid you're gonna whack them someday. Heero, listen man, I'm just trying to protect my team from injury."

Remember that explosion that I said was coming? Well, that was the day that it came. That was the day that Dad hit him. I don't want it to sound like Dad goes smacking his kids around, but Dad never exactly wanted to Heero to be one of his anyway. And then Heero never reacts to anything, and so—I've felt this, done this—you make things hurt so much, just to get him to do something. It makes you go places that you normally wouldn't go, just so he'd actually react, instead of looking at you like you are powerless against him—or maybe, that he was just so numb that he couldn't feel anything. The day that Heero came home and told Mama and Dad about how he got kicked off, was the day that they started fighting again.

They started in the living room. Dad and Mama had been sitting on the couch, and Heero stood in the middle of the room, answering Mama's question about how his day had gone. I sat in front of the coffee table, emptying my backpack, flashing my eyes at Heero to make sure he told them, because I would do it for him otherwise.

Dad jumped up, quivering, and said that Heero got kicked off the team on purpose. 

"I was purposely too good so that I would get kicked off?" Heero asked. 

"You joined the stupid ping-pong team in the first place, just because I said basketball. And now this! This is just an act of rebellion," Dad called it. 

"Against what?" 

"Parental authority."

Heero drew in a deep breath, slowly, and puffed and stiffened. Iron drew into his eye. He asked, keeping his voice very low, but tinged with sarcasm, "How can it be an act of rebellion against parental authority when I don't have any parents?"

Dad made himself rigid, shooting a glance towards Mama. "Don't say things like that. It hurts your mother."

Heero let it fly. "I don't have a mother."

And Dad smacked him. Boom, just like that. It came as a surprise; nobody had even realized things had gotten like that until it happened. It happened so quickly. Dad had his hand up, and then it came down. The sound was sharp, like a crack of thunder overhead. Mama and I both jumped in our seats, and Mama cried, "David!", and Dad stepped back, looking like his face had gone numb.

Nobody said anything. We were horrified, but not because of the slap, but because of Heero. He was the only one of us who saw it coming before it came. He didn't flinch from it, he didn't dodge it. Instead, he raised his face to it, opened himself to it, readied to receive it. Like he was eager for it. When it was over, some of the confusion left his eyes, as though he didn't understand anything up 'til now, but he understood that. He didn't get all the arguing and the groundings and what else, but he understood that. After that, it wasn't so much about Heero being a jerk anymore.

Dad stepped back, pushing a hand through his hair. Heero muttered, "For a pacifist—"

He didn't get to finish. Mama leapt on him, grabbing him by the shoulders. His red cheek looked like a target against his skin. "What happened to you?" Mama screamed, eyes like an owl's.

I put my hands over my ears, because I didn't want to know. Let Heero keep his deep, dark secrets.

"Wh—what?" Heero asked. The confusion was back in his eyes, and the raw openness of vulnerability. It looked weird on him. I think he was starting to finally crack under Mama's consistency.

"Just tell us what happened. It's okay, just tell us—"

He shook his head. "No. Get off me."

"Heero, Heero. Look at me. Tell me."

"No. Stop it. Nothing happened."

She angrily shook her head. She spoke sternly with him, but her tone was stained with a desperation that she couldn't control. "Do not lie to me. Something happened to you. Something happened. Now tell me."

"Peg, leave him alone," Dad said. His voice shook. He didn't want to know Heero's deep, dark secrets either.

"How can't you wonder about your son?" Mama snapped over her shoulder. She gripped Heero harder; her fingers dug down into his arms, pressing down into him, making grooves. He stood still and let her, his face voiding. He twitched his head back-and-forth, no no no. "Just tell us what happened," she begged him. "Don't be afraid to tell us. It can't be that bad."

Blankness hung over Heero's face, and then weariness came down over, clamping down like a shudder. "For you," he answered, "it would be."

"No. Nothing would be." Mama glanced anxiously over her shoulder at Dad, and Dad stood back, looking lost. She turned back to Heero, and slipped her arms around his neck, slowly, hesitatingly, and then fiercely. He stood still, stiffening, with his hair falling into his eyes, and breath quickening. "I've missed you so much. I've missed you so much, Hajime. No matter what it is, it'll be okay. Just tell us what happened, Hajime."

Blankness came slamming back down into place. "Don't call me that. Let go of me." 

He tried to shake her off him, face flat, but he was unsuccessful. He tried being gentle about it. Just as he managed to extract one arm from her, she grabbed hold of him anew. She was nothing but hands. Six-armed Indian goddess was Mama.

"You'll remember some day, Hajime." Mama wrapped her arms around his arm, as though if she could pull the memory out of him, she would. He yanked, but she clung. "Hajime…Hajime—"

"I'm not Hajime."

"Yes, you are. You'll remember."

Dad rushed forward, and grabbed Mama's hands. "Stop it, Peg. Get a grip." He wrenched her off Heero, and pushed Heero towards the door with his other hand. Mama calmed, swallowing. Heero stood at the door a moment, staring at Mama, before sweeping out, his cheek still with a hand-mark on it. And Mama and Dad argued about whether he was really their son or not.

* * *

I was certain that after what had happened, Dad would have lost his oomph towards fighting Heero: guilt blinds you, makes you do weird things. But he didn't. We thought it was bad before, but we quickly discovered that those were only the beginning of Heero and Dad's "discussions." That's what Dad called them, but we knew what they really were, because Dad's voice rose and sarcasm popped up like mushrooms on a field. Heero's voice never rose above a notch, seldom lost any of its monotony, and he was incredibly stubborn. You'd be shouting and stomping all over the place, and he'd just stand there, repeating his side like it was fact, like there wasn't any point with you disagreeing with him. It left you feeling like your side was saying that the sun was black. Mama always sat silent during these arguments, biting her lips. Often, she sat at the piano, playing it fervently, desperately, like a saloon player. It didn't stop them any. They fought mostly about fighting. "Pacifism, pacifism, pacifism," Dad yammered. "Idealism, idealism, idealism," Heero replied. They both had their mantras. "I just don't understand you," Dad told Heero.

"Don't you see that you are driving him away?" Mama asked Dad. Of all things, she didn't want Heero to go…and I thought, that I maybe didn't want Heero to go either. He really was a good guy, once you got used to him. He and Mama had these chopstick championships and he let her win. He showed Calli how to do the shoe foot flip thing, and it wasn't unusual to see a little shoe flying across the room. He helped me out on a paper I had to do for school, on the recent wars, and I totally aced it. I don't think any of us would have minded Heero sticking around for longer than what he said. But Dad…maybe he was interested in driving Heero away.

But no matter all of Dad's attempts, I was certain that if anyone drove Heero away, it would be Mama. She never gave the guy a break, and was ever more pressing on him, wanting him to tell her his secrets. She had a wealth of secret-divining questions. She tried, "What happened to you?", but Heero held consistent against that. Mama can be crafty when she wants, so she formulated, "Where did you learn to do that?" The first time she ever used it, it was after Dad, Heero, and Alex had come back from a brief hunting trip.

Alex and Dad normally go on a hunting trip before Alex has to go back to school in the fall; guilt must have made Dad ask Heero to go along. When he asked, Heero observed that Dad seem to reserve pacifism only for human beings. Dad opened his mouth to tell Heero off, but then Heero apparently dismantled the shotgun and cleaned it up to a spiffy, like he had been born doing it.

"Just be careful," Mama said, like she always does.

Heero shot a deer. When they came home, Dad was red-faced because it had been his life-long ambition to bag a deer, and here this seventeen-year-old kid had done it before him. Mama put the venison on the kitchen table and leaned against the counter, flipping through cookbooks on what to make from it. The mighty hunters stood around the table, flabbergasted, and staring at the meat like it came from a unicorn.

"Shot it through the eye. Fifty yards," Dad told Mama. "Killed it instantly."

"Ew," I said.

"Ew," Calli agreed.

"Heero Yuy: sharpshooter." Alex grinned, and tousled Heero's hair. You could tell Heero was thinking about busting the guy's hand off.

And Mama, smiling, asked the question, "Where did you learn to do that?"

Heero just gave her this long-suffering look. I hated him for daring to do what the rest of us were only thinking of doing. And Heero never answered the question, "Where did you learn to do that?" Somebody else did for him.

* * *

Two days before Heero's birthday, only two days before the day that Heero was going to leave (Mama was certain that he wouldn't), all things fell into place. Final revelation comes to us all at the gas station. We were going to the amusement park because Mama says it's best to go during the off-season, and October was definitely off-season. Personally, I'd rather be warm and waiting in lines, than be on all the frosty rides I can get. And I'd also rather not have been going at this particular time, because Dad and Heero were fighting again.

They were really going at it this time, because Heero had busted some kid in the chops. I saw it. It happened after school, when this guy named Ron, tow-headed and red-faced, came running out of the building, cracking his knuckles. "Heero!" he screamed. Heero turned and faced Ron, like mountain meeting wind.

Ron started the fight because Heero had made Susan cry. I saw that one too. Susan always had a boy at her shoulder, and they weren't the nice boys either. She wore really short skirts, and when she looked at guys, she had this way of lowering her eyelids heavily, with her eyes traveling up and down slowly; with a little, licentious smirk teasing her mouth, like she was getting hungry. Everyone knew that she had taken it into her head that she was going to prove Heero's heterosexuality by making him her latest; everyone was waiting, watching, placing wagers, because no one ever turned Susan down. And if Heero did, then...well, _I_ knew better than to bet my money that Heero was gay, but I was still hoping I would lose. So the entire school watched as she stopped him out in the hallway one day, sliding her hand across his shoulders. She put her mouth next to his neck, whispering into his ear. A rumor went round school about a "five-dollar whore", but only two people in the world know what it is that Heero said back to her. But everyone knew that Susan burst into tears not three seconds after he said it. The winners smiled, the losers didn't. Ron not only was a loser, but, like all other boys, he had a thing for Susan.

Ron threw the first punch. Heero nicked his head to one side and Ron's fist flew right by. Then Heero stuck his fist into Ron's stomach and Ron went down like a ton of bricks. Heero dusted his hands off, and we walked home, like it was everyday you went plastic surgeon on some guy's face.

As we drove to the amusement park, I got myself into trouble commenting on it: "How stupid is it to get angry because someone did something to make you doubt their straightness?" Then while explaining, real quick-like, how it is that this rumor got started, I let slip what Heero did to Ron's dignity. Dad's head just about exploded.

"You should have just walked away!" he yelled. 

"I should have let him use me as target practice?" Heero asked. 

"Turn the other cheek—" 

"I turned his for him." 

I stifled a laugh.

Mama sighed, and butted in. "Heero. Heero, listen to me."

Dad started playing with the radio stations again, and Mama shot him a look of irritation. She turned in her seat to stare at Heero. "Heero, listen. The reason why we don't believe in fighting is because it only leads to sorrow."

Heero made a sound of disgust. "That's shallow reasoning."

Dad tightened his lips across his mouth, but Mama laid a hand on his arm, to keep him from piping in. "Well…." She hesitated, stopped, looked at Dad. Softly, she asked, "But think of the innocent people that are hurt during war, or…just whenever people try to force others to do things, Heero. When people use force against each other, innocents are harmed along the way. And they call it collateral damage."

Heero was quiet a moment, glaring out the window. He then answered, slowly, "I understand collateral damage. I'm not saying that mistakes aren't made during war, but the use of force, such as war, is a way to correct injustices made by people who have no problems trampling those same innocents, those weaker than themselves."

Mama muttered, "Then, do you know how you were lost?"

Heero didn't say anything, but he tilted his face towards Mama.

Mama breathed. "Do you, Heero? Do you know about the assassination—"

"We need gas," Dad spat. We veered off to the side of the road, and pulled into a gas station, tires screeching. Dad barely had the car off before he was running into the gas station, muttering something about snacks. Mama grunted and pulled out her wallet. Heero reached out for it, but she pulled it back at the last moment.

"Don't blame your father for what happened," she said, quietly. He furrowed his brow, and she shoved the credit card into his hand and told him to hurry.

Mama put the window down and rested her arm on it, fixating her sunglasses to her face as though there actually was warm weather out there. A red truck pulled up to the pumps on the other side of ours, and this guy got out and stretched his knees. He had a crooked smile and his hair resembled a disheveled haystack, with bits of yellow fluff sticking out in random areas. There was something weird about his eyes, set like billiard balls in his face. They looked dazed, glazed over, glassy, off-center, crossed—he looked shell-shocked. He stood with his feet together and his knees locked.

Heero pumped the gas, and with hand on nozzle, he stared at Calli in the car, who was making faces at him. The guy next door said calmly, "I know you." Heero paused a moment, looked at the guy over his shoulder, and then turned his face back towards the car again, blankly.

"Hey, I _know_ you," the guy insisted. He reached through the pumps, and tapped Heero on the elbow. Heero jerked his elbow to his side. Mama tilted her sunglasses under her eyes to get a better look at the guy, but she didn't tell him to stop.

"You got the wrong guy, pal," Heero muttered, showing the guy the back of his head. He glanced at the store, where Dad was still inside, puttering around.

"No, I think I do," the guy continued. "I couldn't forget that face."

I had never seen anyone squeeze a gas nozzle so hard in my life. The numbers on the meter counted up at a frenetic pace, but Heero kept squeezing.

Dad came out of the station, his arms full of soda and chips and candy and bad things. He frowned once he realized what was going on. Mama kept her face forward, dark shades pulled firmly above her eyes. She didn't move.

The guy kept talking, grinning like it was the biggest joke in the world. He rubbed his ear. "You don't expect this, you know. Not to meet people like this, at the gas station." Something funny must have struck him, because he roared. "Filling a car. Gets better gas mileage than the last thing you drove, don't it?"

Dad stood frozen.

"Just shut up," Heero hissed. Everything in his body became hard, rigid. Like a rubber band pulled nearly to its breaking point and ready to spring back with a force of snapping.

The guy seemed to think it was funny. "Oh, a threat. Hey, I was in that thing, you know, with Mariemaia and that nut, Barton. And your girlfriend, Relena Peacecraft."

Heero, squeezing the nozzle, staring hard at Calli, opening his mouth as if to say something, and then shutting it back down firm.

"As lovely as that is—" Dad said, blinking.

Finally, the tank was full. Heero whirled the gas cap back on.

Shell-shocked ignored Dad. "I can still hear you saying it—I hear it all the time, in everything I hear. On the wind, in the sound of rushing water, in the streetlamps. In my dreams, sitting on the pot." Shell-shocked guffawed, rubbing his ear lobe.

Dad turned his mouth up in disgust. Mama still didn't do anything. "Come on," Dad muttered. Heero walked briskly back around the car, and Dad slipped into the driver's seat, tossing the junk food at Mama.

" 'Mission accepted.'" Shell-shocked lowered his voice, in a fair imitation. He caught the inflection perfectly. "And then BOOM! Bust the place wide open. Thought I was gonna die!"

Heero was in the car and Dad was in the car, and the doors were slammed shut, and we were driving away. I looked out the back window at Shell-shocked, who stood leaning against the flatbed of his truck, still laughing.

We didn't go to the amusement park. No one spoke. Even Calli understood that something was wrong because she didn't complain. Dad switched the radio from station to station, not staying on one for more than ten seconds at a time. Mama pointed her face towards her open window, drying the tears that slipped down beneath her glasses. Heero stared out the window, his hand on the door latch.

When we got home, Mama sat at the piano, softly playing the left-hand to an old song. Dad was surprisingly calm. He called the Preventer agent. "There's been some mistake," he said. "He's not our son."

Heero was in his room, door open, walking back and forth between the bed and the dresser. His door was always open, for some reason. He always wanted to be left alone, but it was like he didn't know how to value privacy, like the option of closing the door never occurred to him. I wondered if that meant that he didn't feel like he belonged here.

His duffel bag was on the bed. I stood in the doorway, watching him pack. The music from the living room stopped. Dad was arguing with the Preventer, his voice rising. I finally understood who Heero's friends were now.

"Heero Yuy," I said, "is the name of an assassinated colony leader." Heero continued packing as though I hadn't even spoken.

Mama came up behind me, and murmured, "Just go to your room, Yoko." She went into Heero's room, and I turned around and walked towards my door; but turning around at the last moment, I crept back to Heero's door. Strains of Dad's voice, mollified, came down the hallway.

I put my head out just enough to see into Heero's room. He still packed, with a tireless efficiency. Mama watched him, twisting her fingers together. After a few moments, she spoke, clearly and strongly, "It makes sense now, of course. The Preventers…and…I always wondered what made you stay." She laughed a little. "Remember that one time I threatened you that if you ran away, you'd have to live your life on the run because I'd have hundreds of Preventers and police on your tail? I never thought you'd have reason to take it seriously. But I guess, now, that you were tired of living that sort of life." Heero didn't answer, but he continued packing, his face growing ever more like stone. "You always seem so tired," Mama muttered. She dropped her hands, smoothing her skirt, staring at the floor. She raised her face. "Heero, put your things back. You aren't going anywhere."

Heero stopped over the bag, dropping the clothes down into it. He wouldn't look at Mama. He spoke with a voice cold. "I'm certain that Agent Po will be understanding of your situation."

Mama rushed towards him. "I don't care if she is. You are staying with us." She took Heero's shoulders, turned him around, and threw her arms around his neck. His eyes glazed over and he stood stiffly, letting Mama hang off him. "Heero," Mama said, "you are my son. You are my son, and you are staying with us. And I am happy that you are here with us, Heero." She tightened her hold around his neck. This time, Heero didn't shrug her off.

I looked at his hands, lying by his sides. I looked at the thumbs that weren't perfectly straight, made crooked by the pulling of too many weapons. I looked at the fingers that ended bluntly, mashed flat by the pressing of buttons. At the fingers that bent easily and deftly, at the fingers capable of manipulating great machines. At the long, almost endless, lifelines that ran his palms. And at the veins—his veins—that stuck out blue against the whiteness of skin, gorged with blood…not his blood.

I looked at his hands, and I said to myself, "These are the hands of a killer."

_**AN:**__Yes, Yoko Kanno is the master of music—or mistress of music, I should say. If you do not know who she is, rush out right now, and purchase the Escaflowne movie cd. Every person in the world who does not own a copy of this is a very unfortunate person indeed. Hajime Mizoguchi is accomplished as well, and deserves to be on the same cd as she. Give them your money right now, because they deserve it. _

_Remember that second paragraph: "I vowed that I was to write this, the night that I was going to watch him get murdered." Well, the next part is the one where it all hits the fan. Dad reacts, and someone pops up to make life difficult for everyone. _

_Does anyone else think that Heero is the poster-boy for PTSD? Or more importantly, that Mama needs Prozac? Or that Dad needs someone to explain what hypocrisy is? I don't know if I should worry about being unable to make perfect characters—they all become such flawed, crazy people, without my even trying.__What does that say about my mental stability?_


	4. Part 4

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Gundam Wing, nor am I in any way associated with the company or people who were involved with Gundam Wing. I'm just a mere fan, writing a little story for my own amusement, and am not making any monetary profit from this endeavor. That being said, original characters contained within this fic do belong to me. Thank you.

**AN: For those of you who have read this before, I have not written new chapters, just simply did some reformatting (so make it a little easier to read) and fixed some typos.**

* * *

**Hands**

Part Three

* * *

I give kudos to the Preventer agent for managing to do something with Dad, because when he got off the phone, he sat on the couch, flipping channels. This was weird. He should have been going through the roof, but I don't know why I should have expected normality because our entire family was acting weird. Mama came out of Heero's room and snatched me up, and we went into her room to wrap birthday presents. It had some weird surrealism about it, about doing something so full of good memories for someone like him. Putting tape and ribbon around these things, these things that seemed trivial and inappropriate now, seemed so useless. Maybe reality hadn't hit us yet. Half the presents sat in the corner and would go back to the store because we realized how absurd they were now. It had been difficult enough buying things for Heero Yuy; so much worse for a Gundam pilot.

"Most of these things," Mama muttered, laying aside another gift, "are not right."

"Not killing-y enough," I agreed. We sat on the floor, and stooped over so that cricks developed in my neck. I put my head back as far as it could go and stared up at the ceiling.

"Be nice," Mama grumbled. "Let's not forget who kept a meteor from falling on our house." She paused; I felt her intake of air. I put my head back down and looked at her. She smiled gently at the gift she was most proud of: a masculine, blue bedspread.

"I don't know what you're so pleased about," I spat, because she had made me feel ashamed. I took a piece of wrapping paper and crushed into a ball. "It's a good thing we kept the receipts. You're gonna have to take it back."

Mama looked at me, mouth hardening into a firm, unyielding streak. With determination, she reached behind her and brought out her receipts, tossing them into her lap. She ripped them apart, scattering the pieces like confetti. Like birthday confetti. I thought this was a bad idea. "Make sure you are nice to him tonight. I want him to have a nice birthday," she instructed, sternly.

I groaned. "His birthday is the day after tomorrow. You really think he's going to be around that long?" 

Mama didn't say anything. 

"Anyway," I muttered, "once he and Dad have it out…."

That moment, Calli came speeding into the room and threw herself onto Mama's bed. She giggled at us, but it was tinged with a peculiar giddiness, a chipmunky chatter. Through the open door, we heard Dad screaming, "Heero!"

I walked to the door to close it, and glancing out into the hallway, saw Heero charging towards the living room like a horsed knight into battle. I threw Mama a nervous glance, and a glance that said, "See?" She sighed, shutting her eyes. We then left for the fight, I galumphing out, Mama following at a slower pace, leaving Calli behind to shake Heero's gifts. When we entered the living room, Dad and Heero were already facing off. Mama sat at the piano, staring at the sheet music, but not playing. I pretended to be searching the room for something that wasn't there.

It was easy enough to figure out what Dad was upset about. Dad owns this massive sound system, all black boxes, towering atop each other. This one controlled the bass, this one was for the volume, that one was for the tremble—and near this mighty tower, there was a little shoe, lying on the floor. Dad kneeled in front of the most blinking monolith, called the receiver or something, messing around with buttons. Dad's sound system is a precious thing to him, and here the intricate and delicate settings, placed _just_ like that, had been totally destroyed by the impact of one little shoe. Calli had been practicing her shoe foot flipping again.

"This wouldn't have happened if you had listened to me and hadn't shown her how to do it," Dad snarled, turning dials and flipping switches deftly. Sweat beaded his brow. The instrumentation required a surgeon's touch which only he could provide.

Heero stood leaning against the wall, arms across his chest. He glared at the floor. "Let's discuss what this really is about," he muttered, keeping his voice even and low. I shuddered to hear it. I think I was starting to understand Shell-shocked.

Dad turned around, raising his eyebrows. "And what," he asked, sarcastically, "is this about, Heero?"

"You know what this is about."

"This is about you lacking the proper respect that you should have—"

"That is not what this is about. Just say it."

They stared at each other, both with chests swelling and terrible anger deep in their faces. Heero had a tighter, more stringent control than Dad, but I could tell he felt no less deeply. They looked just like each other. I looked towards Mama, fretfully, but she stared still at the sheet music, her eyes scanning it torpidly.

"Say it," Heero ordered. His tone would allow no refusal, demanded obedience.

Dad did obey. "I could have stood…" He faltered. His face screwed up, turned red. His eyes flickered. He tried again. "I do not understand how you could have done that. How could you have…?"

"You already know my thoughts on it."

Dad rose to his feet and swept at Heero. Heero stood straighter, opposing, leaning forward away from the wall. But he kept his palms pressed against it. Dad's voice shook as he spoke. 

"Yes, I do. And you feel that my opinions are shallow. But how many people did you kill?"

"I didn't keep track."

"Because it was nothing to you."

Heero slitted his eyes. He said meticulously, pressing up against the wall, eyes flashing with all the defiance he was capable of, "I would have continued, anyway. So why should I have kept track? So that I could be a hypocrite? I regret nothing. You may regret what I've done, what I've been, but I do not."

Dad shook his head, gnawing his fingers. There was a strange light in his eye, like hunger. His shoulders pattered up and down. "How many lives did you take? All those men and women…"

"They were soldiers. They understood the risks and the sacrifices and the duties that came with job. Do you understand me?"

"What about the innocent people, Heero? I watched the war. I remember the events. _You_ killed innocent people."

Heero flinched, pressing firmly back against the wall. "I admit that I made mistakes. But—"

Dad wouldn't let him finish. He spoke savagely, "I could have stood you being anything else than what you are. Even if you had only been a mere, common soldier, I could have stood it. I could have accepted—"

"That's a lie!" Heero quickly regained a semblance of his earlier control, but even from where I sat, I saw that it was shaking to pieces. He was very angry.

"It's true. But what you were—"

"No, no. Don't tell me that. Even before you knew _this_, you refused to believe that I could be your son. Don't stand there and lie to me about it."

Dad clamped a hand on his mouth, rubbed his chin. I couldn't see his eyes, but I imagined that, above his hand, they must have smoldered. Smoldered as brightly as Heero's. 

"How can I…." He hesitated. "How can I accept when—Hajime was a sweet, gentle child, who cared about people. He was sweet and gentle. And you are nothing like him."

"People change, get over it."

"No. Not like that." Dad's voice was becoming raw. Both of theirs were. I looked towards Mama, uncertainly, wanting her to stop it. But she sat motionless, and with expectation. "Not like that at all."

Heero's words came screaming out of his mouth, like a train bursting out of a dark tunnel. "It happens. And whose fault is that?" My stomach clenched.

"Heero," Mama said, warningly, but it was too late.

Too late. Dad's face had already bleached. He stepped back once, swayed. He threw a glance around the room, as though looking for escape, his eyes protruding from his head. His lips were gray and trembled. "Is that what this is about?" He rubbed his chin. "It was beyond my control."

"What?" Heero snapped.

"I will not feel guilty for what happened back then."

Heero stared at Dad, lowering his eyebrows, moving his face in confusion. Then, he shook his head, frenetically. "If I had come back, even being what I am, saying that I have lived a perfect life, you would have welcomed me. But because I didn't—"

"That isn't true." Dad shrank back from Heero, as though bitten. As though he was terrified of receiving more terrible punishment, as though faced with the most horrible thing of all. I wanted it to stop, but I stood frozen, frightened. And Mama just sat at the piano, the light falling on her face.

"Yes it is. Yes it is."

"Shut up."

Heero's eyes flew down to Dad's hand. I think he was expecting to get hit again. Dad advanced on him, and Heero leaned forward more, still pressing his palms against the wall behind him. "What sort of parent are you? You should pay more attention—"

"Do you—" Dad spat the words, almost too low to hear, "Do you resent me, Heero?"

Heero gasped several times. "Yes."

Dad put his face close to Heero's. I couldn't see Dad's, but I saw Heero's face, looking up, hatred and rage spilling out of his eyes, out of the only things on his face that showed anything. And Dad…I don't think he was listening to Heero. 

Dad said, "Then it is a good thing that you are leaving soon, because I would hate for you to continue on with people that are so repugnant to you."

"David, David!" Mama exclaimed, finally moving. She twirled around on the piano bench, panic-stricken. "David, stop it."

Dad was heedless of Mama. "Since this place is such a hell to you—"

"This place," Heero gasped, "is not hell. But you have yourself to thank—"

"Get out," Dad said. His words were nearly silent, but they were forceful. "I want you out of here."

The room paused on a gasp, waiting. I trembled, afraid that Heero would take his revenge by telling Mama about what Dad had done. But Heero didn't say anything. He only straightened slowly, slipping his hands from the wall, his gaze never wavering from Dad's face. His face was flat again—a determined, controlled flat. He nodded once, at Dad, and then turned and walked out of the room. We three stayed behind, petrified, and Dad stared at the wall where Heero had stood, as though his remnant still remained.

Mama shook where she sat. A quivering moved up her body. She bit her knuckle. "David, you must apologize to him. Make it right with him. Tell him you didn't mean it!"

Dad turned back towards the receiver, expression shuttered. He fiddled with the buttons, his shoulders hunched up around his neck as though anticipating an attack from behind. I thought I was going to be sick.

"David, do you really want to lose your son again?" Mama asked.

Dad still continued with the receiver, like he had gone deaf, pressing buttons with a blankness of face. After a moment, he muttered, "That is not my son."

Rage built in Mama and threatened to overspill her. She rose and stepped towards Dad. Calli came running in, laughing, a birthday hat on her head and one of Heero's gifts in her hands, the paper coming off in strips. Mama made a sound of impatience and grabbed Calli's hand, jerking her out of the room. I looked at the trails the wrapping paper made, and thought that it would be pointless for Mama to rewrap. She would, of course.

I guess Dad had finally gotten what he wanted.

I stood up and walked numbly down the hallway, pausing briefly at Heero's room. The door—if it was possible for a door—looked barred and angry and hurt and barely holding itself together. I hated him. I hated that way he fought with Dad, like no one else would. I hated the way he permitted Mama hanging all over him, perhaps more than tolerating her expressions of maternal instinct. And what he was…well, I couldn't wrap my mind around that; it was like knowing something, but not _knowing_. "Inside," I said, to myself, "there is a killer, a Gundam pilot." It only felt like I was trying to justify Dad.


	5. Part 5

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Gundam Wing, nor am I in any way associated with the company or people who were involved with Gundam Wing. I'm just a mere fan, writing a little story for my own amusement, and am not making any monetary profit from this endeavor. That being said, original characters contained within this fic do belong to me. Thank you.

**AN: For those of you who have read this before, I have not written new chapters, just simply did some reformatting (so make it a little easier to read) and fixed some typos.**

* * *

**Hands**

**Part Five**

* * *

A crash outside my door awoke me from a splendid dream I was having. I blearily opened my eyes, my first thought being that Calli had snuck out and had knocked the birdcage over, trying to make Buttercup sing. The digital clock said it was 2:03 AM, and its light cast Calli's bed in a red glow, revealing her small body within. Her breath was peacefully deep and slow. Then, it occurred to me that it must have been Heero, running away. Heero, leaving before it was time! But I thought it was a threat to his honor or something.

I sat up in bed, heart thumping, goosebumps bubbling along my arms. Dad was puttering around his room, making noise. He must have heard it too. I kicked the covers off me and scrambled out of bed; there wasn't anyway I was gonna miss this. Heero Yuy, caught in the act!

I entered the hallway just as Dad emerged from his bedroom. I would be first to Heero's door. I dashed to it, tripping once over something dim on the floor, and tossed his door open. "Aha!" I screamed. The room was empty, the window open. A moth crawled along the windowsill, fluttering its wings against the breeze. I put my hands on my hips, just as Dad came up behind me, looking in. 

"That punk…."

"But…" Dad muttered, "the sound came from inside the house. It must be your mother." Mama had slept on the couch, saying that it was because she was tired of losing sleep to Dad's snoring. But we all knew the real reason why she had done it.

Dad and I were just about to turn towards the living room, when a strange voice cut the silence, cut the darkness. Something clicked. I was suddenly projected into the room. I tripped over my feet and dropped to the floor, squeaking. The door slammed shut. My shoulder throbbed. I lay on the floor, my head trying to catch up with the rest of my body. Strange voices came from outside the door—a narrow string of light dashed along the bottom of the door. The voices…the voice—raised in fear, in anger, in shouting. They were screaming. I couldn't understand what they said.

Suddenly, it occurred to me: we were being robbed!

I twirled onto my feet, holding my shoulder. The open window provided a promise; the stars, between the curtains, winked at me invitingly, like good friends. I scurried to the window and hefted myself up onto the ledge, accidentally kicking Heero's duffel bag across the room. The room was suddenly bathed in light. I went scrambling over the sill. A hand caught my ankle, scratching me, pulling me, yanking. I tried to kick it off, clawing the wood. The grip tightened. Yanked. My grip slipped.

I fell back into the room. My insides screamed at me for the abuse I was doing to them, but I didn't have time to consider them. Another click. Something against my temple. I held my breath, jolted.

"Get up." A woman said this, growling huskily. She grabbed me by my elbow—I didn't get to look at her—and she lifted me to my feet. My feet were wobbly and weak, but she towed me out into the hallway, the point of her handgun in my shoulder blades pressing me on. Everything was in a fog. We passed by Buttercup's cage, lying on the ground, knocked over, door twisted open. My bird was still inside, too stupid to realize that he was free, and regarding us with a disapproving eye. We passed him and went into the kitchen. Lights blazed from there.

"Oh God," a prayer shrieked. It was Mama, sitting at the kitchen table with Dad, terrified. A gunman stood against the opposite wall, against the dishwasher, tapping a gun against his thigh. Mama burst into tears and Dad tried to rise. A further tapping of the gun by the gunman made him stop.

The woman shoved me towards Mama and Dad and I toppled into their arms. Mama put a chokehold on me—I sat on the floor, against her feet, her arm wrapping around my neck. Dad collapsed back into his seat, muttering. I looked at the burglars. They didn't look like burglars. The woman wore sweatpants, two white lines running the length of her legs, and a blue jersey top; her blonde hair she had pulled back into a ponytail. The man…there was something uneven about his eyes, something dazed, like he had been shell-shocked.

Shell-shocked, from the gas station, smiled at us smoothly, like a snake. His eyes were still unfocused, he still stood at attention. I realized this was no robbery.

"What do you want?" Dad asked, voice hitching and raw.

Shell-shocked raised a finger to his lips. "Just a moment, please. You really have nothing to fear, so just be quiet a moment." He tilted his head towards his accomplice. She kept her black gun up, pointing it at us, shaking it, trying to draw attention to it. As though we needed reminding not to jump them. "Well, Shes?" Shell-shocked asked.

"Not in the house," Shes answered. "Searched the rooms…found her—"

"He's here." Shell-shocked got up from the counter and approached us. I felt Dad next to me shaking—or was that all of us? Shell-shocked grinned and laughed. Cleared his throat. Tapped the gun against his leg. "Where is he?" 

We didn't answer. 

His smile fell. "Answer me when I speak to you."

"Wh—who?" Dad choked. His voice was a thousand pieces. Mama wasn't capable of saying anything other than her prayer to God.

"You know who I'm talking about. The Gundam pilot, Heero Yuy. He's here. Where is he?"

Mama tightened her grip on my neck—I couldn't catch my breath. "Just take whatever you want and leave us alone," she gasped. "The piano's a very nice one—"

Shell-shocked rolled his eyes and turned on his heels in impatience. Shes snarled, "A piano? What are you, an idiot? We aren't here for that! Just tell us where he is."

"We don't know who you are talking about. Gundam pilot—" Dad cried.

"Don't play that game with me." Every time Shell-shocked raised the gun from his leg, the light from the lamp glinted off the tip, brightened instantly, fell away. "He was with you today. You—" he nodded at Dad, "called him Heero, so let's not play that game either. I want to have a chat with him. So where is he?"

"Him? He doesn't belong to us. We were just giving him a ride—"

"That's a lie," Shes shrieked. She laughed. "A little bird tells me that the room I found _her_ in…" she indicated me, with the gun, "is his room."

"That's my room!" I screamed.

"No. I counted four beds. One's for mommy and daddy, one's for sister, one's for baby, and one's for Gundam pilot. Two beds, in one room, in baby's room. Sister takes care of sister…doesn't that make any sense?"

Shell-shocked pursed his lips. He smirked at us all, shaking our heads frantically. Bom bom bom, said the gun on his leg. "Well, that actually does make sense. I had to share a room with my brother, when I was a kid. So if not as we say, then why the extra bed in baby's room?"

"It was my son's. He went to college, and we kept it, to grow into," Mama explained, in between "Oh-God's."

I screamed again, tears blinding my view. But even though my vision blurred, the gun against his leg stood out starkly. "You say this guy is a Gundam pilot…you think a Gundam pilot is gonna stand for sleeping underneath a pink blanket?"

Shell-shocked burst into laughter. Shes' face closed up, I think, because she hadn't thought of it. She sneered, waiting for Shell-shocked to finish. He stepped back and forth, foot to foot, wagging his head like I was a regular comedian. He leaned against the counter, catching his breath. He narrowed his eyes in slyness. 

"Girl's a genius. All right. So if this guy isn't here, then where is he?"

Nobody spoke a moment. Dad put his head into his hands, muttering, "We shouldn't have driven home."

"Yeah, that's right. Now if you don't tell me where he is, then I will kill you until you do tell me." He pointed at Mama, who repeated her supplication, rocking back and forth. "I'll start with her because she's really starting to get on my nerves."

Mama continued, "Oh God oh God oh God oh God." I put my face against her knee, sobbing in terror.

"Hey!" came a shout. 

Shell-shocked quivered, from his toes right on up to his head. We looked up, past the half wall. In the living room, there stood Heero, looking in with eyes like two pointed blades. 

"Leave them alone." He put his hands behind his head and came in.

Mama's litany increased in speed, in volume. "Oh God!" she screamed, rocking now, until the world must have been a blur to her. I was frozen, couldn't breathe. Dad had his face in his hands, groaning.

Shes asked, "That him? That kid?"

"Yeah, that's him." Shell-shock's voice lowered into a deep growl, rebounding in his chest. He raised the gun at Heero. "Do not speak."

Shes pointed her gun at Heero's head. He stared at her, sullenly. She circled him, until she had the barrel digging into his back, and she pushed him further into the room until they stood in front of us, facing Shell-shocked. Heero kept his eyes on Shell-shocked. I stared at Heero's profile; it was inscrutable.

"Well, well, if it isn't the hero," Shell-shocked chuckled, twitching his head. He raised a hand to rub his ear. The gun tapped against his leg with an increasing speed. Shell-shocked saluted Dad with two fingers. "You've been lying to me. But it's all right. Understandable. It's not everyday you're asked to witness an execution."

Mama screamed, falling back against her chair. Dad threw his hands to either side of his head, stricken silent. I couldn't breathe.

"On your knees," they told Heero. He got down, and Shes stood back behind him, aiming her gun at the back of his head. "Hands behind your back, we'll do this right." Heero put his hands back, face calm. A smile brightened Shell-shock's face, making him appear a child.

"No no no no," Dad chanted. "Why are you doing this?" he screamed.

Shes stopped, blinking in surprise. "He's a Gundam pilot," she said.

"So?"

"So?" Shes was incredulous. Deep shadows darkened underneath her eyes. "So? He killed countless people. He's a murderer. He killed Miguel."

"No, he's a soldier."

Shell-shocked raised a finger and shook it at Dad, like a father scolding a child. "No, no. A soldier is like me, like Shes, like Miguel. _He_ is a murderer. He had this thing, this Gundam, and Miguel liked in dread fear of it until the day it killed him. What right had he to do that? His opinions were flawed."

The words flowed out of Dad; desperation characterized the sound of his mouth. "No. He was only doing what he believed was right. If he hadn't done what he had done…would OZ and the Alliance done any differently? They were oppressive…the force was necessary—it was war! He did it for others. A murderer enjoys what he does. He didn't!"

Shell-shocked sneered. "This isn't about feelings, this is about actions." Shell-shocked turned away from Dad and smiled at Heero. Heero stared back, unflinchingly. "I don't want to ruin the carpet, so that's why we're doing this in here." Mama groaned. "Don't worry about it. I understand that he's the suicidal one, so this is actually a favor."

"You can't do this!" Mama's shout was so strong it rang my ears. I wrapped my arms around her legs, feeling them shake against me. Her entire body heaved. "He's my son. We just got him back." She stretched her hand out towards Heero but he still didn't look at us. Mama raised her face and pointed towards the mantle. "He's been gone so long. There, see? On the mantle, there's a picture of him when he was only three. We only just got him back, you can't take him from us again."

"Just shut up!" Shes shouted.

Shell-shocked shook his head, laughing, and holding his hand out towards Shes. "Just a moment. I've gotta see this." He sauntered into the living room, waggling his eyebrows at Mama as he passed, and went on to the mantle. He leaned against the wall, knocking picture frames off with his finger, until he found the one of Hajime. The frames cracked underneath his feet as he trod upon them, and he came back into the kitchen, scrutinizing the picture. "Your kid, huh? You raised a heck of a kid. Hey, same expression."

"Yes." I felt hope rising in me, urging Mama on. The trembling slowly eased in her as she spoke. "They took him from us, when he was only three. We lost him."

Shes sighed in frustration. Shell-shocked ignored her. "Really? How's that?"

"There was an assassination. I was on another colony and David had the children, Alex and Hajime and Yoko." I felt Dad, behind me, put his head into his hands. "In the shuttleport, they were trying to come to me…but they were checking everyone, for the assassin. There was a commotion. There was a commotion…." Mama's voice rose in horror, into a bare squeak. "Somebody was hurt. David got distracted, just for a second, and then _he_ was gone. Someone took him. And we couldn't find him again."

Heero's expression didn't change, but his blinking slowed to a methodical pace, as though a revealing was coming to him.

Shell-shocked shook his head. "My my, what a sad story." He sighed heavily. Then, he tossed the frame over his shoulder. It cracked against the tile. "But you can't excuse his actions for that. We like to blame society for the actions of the individual, but that's today's trouble. Nobody wants to take responsibility. So we have to make them do it."

"Come on! The cops could show up at any minute! I don't want to go to jail," Shes snapped. She shook her head back and forth, her ponytail rocking side to side.

Shell-shocked pointed the gun at Heero again, swallowing heavily. Dad threw his arms around me. I felt something wet on his cheeks. Shell-shocked blinked, profusely. "I'm sorry…but I hear his voice all the time. If he is dead, then the voice will go. Shes, what are you doing?"

She was slowly slipping around Heero, until she had the barrel against Heero's temple. She rocked on her feet, placing another hand on the gun. "He killed Miguel," she muttered. Her eyes flew from place to place—at Heero, then Shell-shocked, then us, now Heero—desperate and wild. "I don't want to go to jail."

"Ah!" Shell-shocked exclaimed. "Yes, there is always that to consider…. Yes, they'd believe a suicide."

Dad in took a gulp of startled air. Mama began her prayer again: "Oh God oh God oh God." I didn't understand what was going on, but something cold and heavy dropped into my stomach with a terrific plop, and stayed there.

"I don't want to go to jail," Shes screamed, pounding her foot. "Not for doing this."

"Yes, yes, not for doing the right thing." Shell-shocked tilted his head at us, narrowing his eyes slyly. He smiled smoothly, oily, flashing teeth. He kept rubbing his ear. "A murder-suicide…exactly something someone like him would do. They'd expect that, too."

I finally got it. The world tilted at an odd angle beneath me. A fuming wail built up in my ears; a siren screamed and screamed, building, building, and I thought I'd go deaf from the sound of it. I couldn't hear anything but that screaming. Mama and Dad were yelling but I couldn't hear. The screaming sounded like death coming.

I studied Heero's face. For the first time that evening, his expression changed. It became colder, more terrible. It didn't change so that you could see it, but it brimmed underneath. He became stiller than ever. He raised his eyes at Shell-shocked, a determination and awfulness there. How could I have ever thought his face flat?

The wailing continued. It grew louder, but I heard the words, bleeding through, "This is _your_ fault, you know." Shell-shocked nodded at Mama and Dad. "Your fault…as much as anyone's—more than anyone's! Contributed bad genes. Lost him, let this happen to him. You're as much to blame as he is."

Mama and Dad were screaming again. I still couldn't hear them—the wailing….

The only voice that broke through the wailing, that stood in stark reality, was Shell-shock's. 

"Odd family. I never heard of the wife sleeping on the couch!" Shell-shocked and Shes succumbed to fits of giggles. Shell-shocked tried to turn his mouth straight, but it propped up at the corners. The tapping of the gun against his leg was a smudge to me. "It's living proof of the absurdity and perversity of this household. You can't fight your genes. There's nothing else to do but expunge every last threat…_every__last_ threat—"

Something small and yellow swooped into the room. We all stopped to watch it. Shell-shocked stopped, Shes stopped; Heero moved.

He was a distortion of light. He swung up on Shes, grappling her for the gun. She tripped, stumbled, her hands crushed underneath the power of Heero's hands. Shell-shocked fired. Mama and I screamed. Shes shrieked, jerked, fell back. Heero twirled the gun in his hand and had it, and had it pointed at Shell-shocked. And everyone stopped again.

"Put the gun down," Heero ordered. His eyes…they must have seared Shell-shocked. He rose slowly from his knees.

Shell-shocked laughing, shaking, and training his weapon on Heero, clinging to it like it was his only hope. "No." He laughed again. "This is a Mexican stand-off, isn't it?"

Shes lay on the floor, not moving. Blood—black blood, shining like oil—spread out underneath her. It seeped around Heero's bare feet. Something bright dripped down, landing on his toes. His arm bled, piercing ruby spilling over and down.

Dad grabbed me up—Mama and Dad—and dragged me into the living room. I pushed them off me; Mama snatched at me and we hit the wall and stood, facing the kitchen. Shell-shocked and Heero stood in profile, holding guns at each other's faces. We were all caught in a state of freezing, except for Buttercup. My bird still flitted above us; in silence, he flew.

Shell-shocked was still laughing. "Where's the family going? Always leaving you behind, huh?"

Heero pulled back the hammer. It clicked and grinded pungently, so that there wasn't any need for Heero to vocalize any threat for himself; the gun did his talking. Shell-shocked raised an eyebrow. 

"Put it down."

Shell-shocked twitched his head. "No, you put yours down. You'll miss, I won't." Heero did not answer. Shell-shocked twitched, twitched. His voice was steady. "Come on, put it down. Look at your hand, shaking. Pathetic."

Heero's hand was trembling, and he raised the other—it sweating blood—and put it over the other. The air stuck in my throat; I telescoped on Shell-shock's finger, focused in and on, on his finger tightening invisibly on the trigger.

"Come on, put it down," Shell-shocked continued. "Remember what you said? What you told your girlfriend…about not hurting people anymore. Was that a lie?"

Heero's face was mask-like. "Put it down, and you won't be harmed."

Shell-shock's finger curved fractionally around the trigger, too slightly to be able to tell the difference.

Someone fired.

Dad threw his hands over his ears; Mama squeezed the life out of me. The pair—Heero, Shell-shocked—stood a moment, staring at each other, and I doubted that I had even heard the gunshot at all. I thought that I must have imagined it, except the gun was missing from Shell-shock's hand. And then, he wavered. He tilted back, slowly; then he tumbled quickly and disappeared behind the wall. The table rattled, and then all was silent. Heero stood without motion, staring.

By the time we entered the kitchen, he had already dropped the gun—it lay in a pool of blood—and he was backed up against the refrigerator, chest swelling, expanding, pushing out, and then collapsing. A haunting glow cast itself on his face, as an aura, accompanied by exhaustion.

"Is he dead?" Heero muttered.

Dad checked. "No."

Dad checked up on Shes, and then grabbed the phone and walked out. Mama pressed a towel against Heero's arm—I don't think he realized he was hurt, or maybe just didn't care—and held him to her, shaking. She didn't cry. Over her shoulder, Heero gazed at Shell-shocked, blinking numbly. It was as though this was all in a day's work for him…but his hands wouldn't stop quaking. Shell-shock's shirt turned red, the gore spreading from shoulder and on out, and bright, deep red all over his mangled hand, where he had held the gun. Dad came back in, muttering that Calli was still asleep in her bed. Then he kneeled next to Shell-shocked, ripping the man's shirt open. A deep, red, wet hole glared up at the ceiling. Dad covered it, applying pressure.

"He is not going to die," Dad muttered, lips pressed against his teeth. "My son will not have killed one more person."

Heero had his face against Mama's shoulder. I think Mama was right. I think he was tired.

I stood in the doorway, watching all this, not thinking much of anything. When the paramedics and the police came, they left the front door wide open. Something small and yellow flitted out the door. I screamed.


	6. Part 6

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Gundam Wing, nor am I in any way associated with the company or people who were involved with Gundam Wing. I'm just a mere fan, writing a little story for my own amusement, and am not making any monetary profit from this endeavor. That being said, original characters contained within this fic do belong to me. Thank you.

**AN: For those of you who have read this before, I have not written new chapters, just simply did some reformatting (so make it a little easier to read) and fixed some typos.**

* * *

**Hands**

**Part Six**

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Mama and I sat in the living room, on our sides of the couch, crying. We wept bitter, stinging tears, letting them fall through our fingers to make wet dots on our skirts. We wept for two different reasons though.

"He's going to leave us for certain now," Mama sniffed. She held the picture of Heero that she was going to give him for his birthday. I didn't see how she could see it, with her black-hole hair falling raggedly into her face.

"He's never going to come back," I wailed. I clutched the twisted birdcage, my fingers wrapping themselves up in the bars. Every one of my sobs gave a little shake to the cage, and the birdseed rattled around inside, against the newspaper.

"He's going to feel like he _must_leave, because he will feel like his presence has put us into danger."

"He's out there, lost; he can't find his way home."

Dad flopped in, carrying a bright, shiny new cage in one hand, and new picture frames in the other. He gave us a weird look, like we had lost our marbles. He sat in between Mama and me, and began reframing the photos that Shell-shocked had broken the frames to.

"My son," Mama murmured.

"My bird," I sobbed.

The house shook; Heero was outside with Calli, apparently trying to show her how to bring a house down with only a basketball. Or maybe he and the Preventers were reliving their glory days in the war.

"This garage door represents an evil, but weak, Leo. So I took my Gundam and did something like _this_! Justice!" That was how Agent Po's new partner spoke. She had brought him when she rushed over, after Dad called her to tell her what happened, and I had only to take one look at the guy to know what he was. Same look that Heero had, like he owned the world. Like if you crossed your eyes at him, he'd uncross them for you.

After the paramedics and the police and Preventers had left, Heero had gone to his bed, lay on the pink comforter, and slept. No one else could sleep but he slept for hours. We had to wake him up when the Agents Po and Chang came over again, after they had done dealing with Shell-shocked. Dad joked that they would need a ten-foot pole to wake Heero up safely, but all it really took was Calli scrambling all over him, yelling, "Wake up, slugabug!" We took the agents out for dinner because there wasn't anyway that Mama was going to cook in that kitchen, and they told us amusing stories about Heero. My favorite was the one that some guy named Duo had told Agent Po, about a time when Heero had stolen parts off his Gundam. Agent Chang's eye twinkled, but he put a disapproving look on his face and _hmmed_. But he's okay, because he told us about how Shes had died on the way to the hospital, and about how Shell-shocked was doing fine, only except his hand and shoulder were a little sore.

"And he's gone deaf," Agent Chang explained. Normally, Dad worries about patient confidentiality, but tonight he was nodding his head, urging Agent Chang on. "The doctors can't find any physical reason for it. They think his hearing may come back, but I doubt it. He seems really happy about it."

Then we came home and Mama and I sat on the couch, crying. Mama stopped after a little while and played the piano a little, telling Dad, "I've been thinking about playing for the philharmonic again, just a little. What do you think of that?" Heero and Calli came in—"Where Beercup?" Calli was always asking, no matter how many times we explained it to her—and Heero went into his room, and night grew dark. It began raining hard, water rushing down in a deluge. I cried even more then, because Buttercup was out in that cruel weather, alone.

"Yoko, go get Heero's presents from my room, please," Mama sighed.

"But his birthday isn't until tomorrow."

"Yoko…."

I rose and obeyed her, sliding my feet across the carpet like a gloomy Gus. Heero's door was ajar. I didn't hear any sound coming from inside, no comforting typical clackity clack of fingers on keyboard. I couldn't help myself; I looked in.

I sped back out into the living room, shouting, "He's GONE!"

Dad leapt to his feet, and was out of the room like a wind. Mama and I followed him—Calli stayed behind, unconcernedly playing with her toys—and we all stood in Heero's doorway, looking at Dad, who stuck his head out the open window. He rounded back on us, grinding his teeth, and face wet.

"If he thinks he can do this without facing consequences…" He stormed past us. We tumbled in his wake and followed him out to the kitchen, where he tore the phone off the hook. "He isn't eighteen yet. I'm calling the cops. Telling them I have a runaway."

Mama scratched her arm. "They won't do anything. It hasn't been twenty-four hours."

"So? They won't know."

"David, are you kidding me? They were just here this morning. I think they'd know."

Dad tapped his finger against the receiver, twisting his mouth, a shadow falling on his face. Mama approached him. He brightened. "I'll call Agent Po."

"And what's she gonna do? David, it's nearly nine o'clock at night. He's practically old enough to be an adult. Nobody is going to waste their resources and time looking for someone who's going to be legal within a few hours."

Dad tromped back into the living room and we all collapsed onto the couch. I bit my fingers. Mama rubbed her wrist. Dad curled and uncurled his fingers. We heard some thunder.

I started crying again. Mama put her hand on my back and rubbed. "It's going to be okay, Yoko," she said. "Buttercup will be fine."

"The least he could have done," I wailed, "was wait until tomorrow to say goodbye like a regular human being." Mama rubbed my back raw, frantically.

"It makes me ill," Dad muttered. He put his lids over his eyes and ran fingers across his brow, lining the ridge. Mama put her other hand on his. We sat that way, just like that.

When the doorbell rang, we three peered at each other, uncertain that we had heard correctly. "Bell," Calli informed us.

Dad propelled himself off the couch, muttering and grouching about how late it was, and Mama and I sat, perking our ears. We couldn't hear much. We heard the door open, we heard the sound of rain falling on concrete and grass, we heard the wind shaking the trees. The front door closed, and Heero walked into the room, dripping water. He smelled like rain. He held his hands in front of himself, cupped together. He left soggy footprints on the carpet, and I thought, "Poor Mama's carpet."

"Heero…." Mama muttered, softly.

He held his hands out towards me. "Yoko."

Dad stood against the wall, hands in his pockets. I rubbed my tears away and stood up, and neared Heero. When I got close, he opened his hands, and inside, between the palms, was my little bird. My little canary, a ball of yellow fluff, his black eyes gleaming at me like glass beads.

"I saw him fly by the window," Heero explained. "So I got him."

"Without a coat or shoes?" Mama tsked, rising to fetch a blanket—a blue blanket. 

I smiled at Mama, trying to mother a Gundam pilot. Dad looked stunned. He looked like he was standing on the edge of a great ravine, and was just looking down, to see how deep it lay. 

"You couldn't have walked out the door like a normal person?" Mama called.

"I didn't want to lose sight of him," Heero explained. "He flew far. I saw yellow in a tree, and I called, until he came."

I snorted with laugher, envisioning Heero Yuy standing out in the rain, yelling into a tree, "Buttercup! Buttercup!" My hands brushed Heero's hands when I took Buttercup away from him. His hands weren't rough at all.

I put Buttercup into his new cage. He plumped his feathers out, and as he hopped across the bars, he sang a little. Just a little song, but it was proud and strong. I smiled, and Calli yippeed.

Dad's face cleared. The eyes opened wide, and confusion left them. "Oh!" he said, quietly. It went unspoken, but we knew—at least, I knew—what it was that he meant, what it was that he would have said had he continued: "Oh, there you are, Hajime."

I didn't know anything about that; I didn't know Hajime. But I knew Heero. And as I looked at Heero, I saw something in his hands. I saw the way Dad's thumb cricked at the joint, and I saw the bluntness of Calli's fingertips. I saw the same Z that was in the palm lines, just like in Alex's hands; and I saw the smooth dexterity of Mama's fingers. I saw the same network of blue veins that were my own. Our entire family was in Heero's hands. I knew, then, that it didn't matter whether he left us on the morrow or not, because he would always be a part of us. He was ours.

"Hero, Hero!" Calli said, pulling on his shirt. It reminded me that she was the only one of us who actually knew anything about anything.

* * *

_**AN:**__And all's right with the world once again. No more explorations into the consequences of guilt or denial, or the wackiness of people suffering from post-traumatic, or little girls making birdies sing. That's it, that's the end. Go home now._


End file.
